


At your front door

by tsuristyle



Category: SMAP
Genre: M/M, ambiguous conversations, at one in the morning, past relationship, post-Waratte Iitomo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-12 08:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9063703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsuristyle/pseuds/tsuristyle
Summary: Nakai starts, like he hadn't expected Tsuyoshi to actually answer, and lets out a soft half-laugh that is also half smoke. He looks cold. He always does off-camera, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head like he's guarding what heat he has carefully inside. "Can I come up?"(Set after Waratte Iitomo ended. Written May 2014.)





	

Tsuyoshi wakes up at 1:00 am on Friday morning when Nakai rings his doorbell.  
  
He stares at the vidscreen blearily, uncomprehending at the sight of the older man standing at the entrance to his building. Nakai shifts from foot to foot, looking down and side to side and anywhere but at the camera, and raises a cigarette to his lips.  
  
"You shouldn't smoke this late," Tsuyoshi says, because that is honestly the first thing that comes to mind.  
  
Nakai starts, like he hadn't expected Tsuyoshi to actually answer, and lets out a soft half-laugh that is also half smoke. He looks cold. He always does off-camera, hunching his shoulders and ducking his head like he's guarding what heat he has carefully inside. "Can I come up?"  
  
Tsuyoshi thinks about saying no, it _is_ one in the morning and he needs to get some sleep so he can get up later for-- no, that's right, he doesn't have anything on Friday anymore. He wakes up a little more, trying to comprehend _that_ , and wonders if that is why Nakai is here.  
  
"No smoking," Tsuyoshi tells him, and lets him into the building.  
  
Why is Nakai here? He's pretty sure he knows, in a vague and insubstantial way that is probably about as well as Nakai knows, too. He's pretty sure it has to do with alcohol, and the party after Iitomo, and Nakai pressing a glass of beer into his hand in order to be the first one to hand him a drink that night. Nakai is happy Tsuyoshi can drink again. He wants Tsuyoshi to drink so that he'll have a way to be able to talk to Tsuyoshi again. He wants an excuse.  
  
He wants the past, Tsuyoshi thinks, and it's not that he doesn't think Nakai wants him to be careful but he also has the feeling Nakai wants to get piss-drunk with him like they used to, laughing at nothing and losing clothes over the course of the night until they end up tangled together in each other's warmth. But even that was only during tours, and those became only every other year, and what was the point if you only really saw each other every two years?  
  
Tsuyoshi hopes Nakai isn't here to talk about that. Nakai's only shown up at his door and it's already giving him a headache.  
  
There is a quiet knock, and Tsuyoshi answers. Nakai still smells like cigarette smoke, is still shifting from foot to foot and looking down at the floor.  
  
"It's over," Nakai says. It sounds almost like a question.  
  
"It's just a show," Tsuyoshi replies.  
  
Nakai nods, falling silent again. The silence stretches awkwardly between them and Tsuyoshi leans against the door, tired of it coming back to this. Maybe Nakai wants to talk. Maybe he wants to hug Tsuyoshi, a hug days or even years late for something or other Tsuyoshi did. Maybe he just wants to sleep on Tsuyoshi's couch while Tsuyoshi goes to sleep in his own room, barely breathing the same air but still somehow too close. Nakai wants something and he wants Tsuyoshi to guess what it is, because he doesn't have the courage to say it himself, because he won't _talk_ unless they're drinking, and that is why Tsuyoshi broke up with him, not because they didn't have anything without alcohol but because he was tired of guessing.  
  
Nakai fidgets in his pockets, reaches one hand up to tug at a lock of hair and then sticks it back in his pocket. "I don't know why I miss it so much."  
  
Tsuyoshi watches Nakai. "It was frustrating and we never said anything."  
  
Nakai scuffs his toe on the floor, along the edge of the carpet pattern. "But there were good moments."  
  
"Yeah." Tsuyoshi smiles. It's not that he doesn't miss it, after all. "It was warm."  
  
Nakai looks up, and the charade of what they might be talking about dissolves like so much cigarette smoke. "That's what I want."  
  
Tsuyoshi blinks, holds onto the door frame.  
  
"I don't want to get back together," Nakai says, and it's slowly like he's still not sure of the words but they're decisive, determined when he says them. "I want that warmth."  
  
It's Tsuyoshi's turn to look down and study the patterns in the carpet. Warmth. There are a hundred moments of it, a thousand, like points of light he'd tried to connect though there was so much space between. But, and the thought takes time, like the thawing of ice in a glass of whiskey-- if there were a thousand points of light, how could it have seemed dark? Maybe he'd been trying to make them into what he wanted, instead of what they were. Maybe he'd been squinting so hard for a constellation that he'd lost sight of the night sky.  
  
...Did he really just compare his relationship with Nakai to the night sky? No wonder he has a headache-- he's still overthinking things too much, even now.  
  
Nakai wants warmth. Tsuyoshi can handle that.  
  
He smiles and lets go of the door frame, standing up straight. "Come in for a drink?"  
  
There isn't any alcohol in his kitchen. But maybe, this time they won't need it.


End file.
